A Chinese commercial delegation will visit Iowa Thursday to sign more than a dozen contracts to buy soybeans and health products. The contract signing event will be at 12:15 p.m. at the Des Moines Embassy Club. Gov. Terry Branstad met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Chinese governors from the provinces of Sichuan, Chongqing, Zhejiang, Shandong, and Shaanxi in Seattle earlier this week. Last year, the United States shipped $24 billion worth of agricultural products to China, and $14 billion of which were soy products. That same year, China was Iowa’s fourth-largest export market, with exports of manufactured and valued goods exceeding $946.4 million. Overall exports to China for the first six months of this year are up more than 63 percent over that same period in 2014, moving China to Iowa’s third-largest export market. Read more